At a time when lakhs of acres of standing wheat crop in Uttar Pradesh has been devastated due to unseasonal rains leaving farmers in throes of an unprecedented despair, the owner of a 24-bigha (six hectares) farm at the outskirts of this state capital is neither deterred nor perturbed by the vagaries of the inclement weather.

Ethiopia has offered to Indian investors 1.8 million hectares of farmland, equalling nearly 40 percent the total area of principal grain-growing state of Punjab, in what could give a big push to the country`s food security.